The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferring abstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit of the Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievance difficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. The claim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it was unjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The suffering that would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than the suffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain and remote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience and loyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifest principle on the other-a principle so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right. "A free people," said Dickinson, "can never be too quick in observing nor too firm in opposing the beginnings of alteration either in form or reality, respecting institutions formed for their security. The first kind of alteration leads to the last. As violations of the rights of the governed are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner as to touch individuals but slightly. Every free state should incessantly watch, and instantly take alarm at any addition being made to the power exercised over them." Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is reasonably and equitably exercised; but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised. The contest was plainly a contest of principle, and was conducted entirely on principle by both parties. "The amount of taxes proposed to be raised," said Marshall, the greatest of constitutional lawyers, "was too inconsiderable to interest the people of either country." I will add the words of Daniel Webster, the great expounder of the Constitution, who is the most eloquent of the Americans, and stands, in politics, next to Burke: "The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the Colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty, and that was in their eyes enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactment, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They saw in the claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power."
The object of these men was liberty, not independence. Their feeling was expressed by Jay in his address to the people of Great Britain: "Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness." Before 1775 there was no question of separation. During all the Revolution Adams declared that he would have given everything to restore things as before with security; and both Jefferson and Madison admitted in the presence of the English minister that a few seats in both Houses would have set at rest the whole question.
In their appeal to the higher law the Americans professed the purest Whiggism, and they claimed that their resistance to the House of Commons and the jurisprudence of Westminster only carried forward the eternal conflict between Whig and Tory. By their closer analysis, and their fearlessness of logical consequences, they transformed the doctrine and modified the party. The uprooted Whig, detached from his parchments and precedents, his leading families and historic conditions, exhibited new qualities; and the era of compromise made way for an era of principle. Whilst French diplomacy traced the long hand of the English opposition in the tea riots at Boston, Chatham and Camden were feeling the influence of Dickinson and Otis, without recognising the difference. It appears in a passage of one of Chatham's speeches, in 1775: "This universal opposition to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen. It was obvious from the nature of things, and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the confirmed habits of thinking, from the spirit of Whiggism flourishing in America. The spirit which now pervades America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money in this country, is the same spirit which roused all England to action at the Revolution, and which established at a remote era your liberties, on the basis of that grand fundamental maxim of the Constitution, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent. To maintain this principle is the common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the Atlantic, and on this. It is the alliance of God and Nature, immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven. Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission will be found equally impotent to convince or enslave your fellow-subjects in America."
(John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "Lectures on the French Revolution")
But from the point of view of a citizen of a country the predecessors of which remained loyal throughout those years in the late 1770s and early 1780s, which saw fighting on its soil then and in the mid-1810s, which was driven to unify and expand under threats of invasion and annexation in the mid-1860s, which saw tariffs imposed a few decades later in an attempt to crush its economy and force annexation, and which nonetheless by the mid-20th century had become the staunchest of allies of the United States of America, declaring war on its attacker on December 7, 1941 even before the United States did, accepting hundreds of diverted flights and tens of thousands of diverted air passengers on another dark day for the United States sixty years later in Opération ruban jaune, and fighting alongside Americans in the Aleutians, in Normandy, in Korea, in Kuwait, in Afghanistan, and even its soldiers on military exchange in American units went to Iraq, and which has now seen that very same country elect in a free democratic exercise as its leader a man who has reverted to the policies of America's early days and repeatedly threatened invasion and annexation, disrespected our sovereignty and denied our form of government, and went so far as to escalate from categorically ruling out the use of military force to saying it was very unlikely after meeting with our Prime Minister...
"We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons."
"As the anthem reminds us, the True North is indeed strong and free."
On this day, the United States celebrates its freedom from what its founders saw as unjust tyranny, while at the same time threatening to impose that same unjust tyranny on others.
From a YouTube video by a Canadian conservative, posted March 9, addressing the tariffs levied against Canada and the threats of invasion and annexation made by the United States:
"You have literally become worse than the villain of your own creation story. At least with England, they actually had a credible argument, a credible claim, as you were their colony. They did subsidise your development, and so forth. They actually had an argument. You guys have none right now. And, to be clear, had I been around at the time, in 1776, I would have been a rebel, I would have been a revolutionary, I would not have been a loyalist. But America, you are now, quite literally, worse than 1775 England. You have lived long enough to see yourselves become the villain of your own story, by your own standards."
You celebrate your independence in the shadow of threatening worse to others, on flimsier grounds.
Thank you for reminding us that July 4th wasn’t the wedding—it was the proposal. The honeymoon never happened, and the in-laws (looking at you, capitalism and white supremacy) have been trying to annul the engagement ever since.
Declaring independence is easy. Living like we mean it? That’s where the callouses and jail records come in.
Freedom isn’t a product we inherited. It’s a project we unfinished. And the moment we forget that, some hedge fund manager in a flag pin will sell us a cheaper version of it—one that comes with subscriptions, surveillance, and a shrink-wrapped illusion of choice.
So yes. The fight continues. Not for nostalgia. Not for perfection. But for the audacious possibility that we could choose again. And this time, maybe choose each other.
The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferring abstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit of the Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievance difficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. The claim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it was unjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The suffering that would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than the suffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain and remote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience and loyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifest principle on the other-a principle so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right. "A free people," said Dickinson, "can never be too quick in observing nor too firm in opposing the beginnings of alteration either in form or reality, respecting institutions formed for their security. The first kind of alteration leads to the last. As violations of the rights of the governed are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner as to touch individuals but slightly. Every free state should incessantly watch, and instantly take alarm at any addition being made to the power exercised over them." Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is reasonably and equitably exercised; but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised. The contest was plainly a contest of principle, and was conducted entirely on principle by both parties. "The amount of taxes proposed to be raised," said Marshall, the greatest of constitutional lawyers, "was too inconsiderable to interest the people of either country." I will add the words of Daniel Webster, the great expounder of the Constitution, who is the most eloquent of the Americans, and stands, in politics, next to Burke: "The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the Colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty, and that was in their eyes enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactment, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They saw in the claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power."
The object of these men was liberty, not independence. Their feeling was expressed by Jay in his address to the people of Great Britain: "Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness." Before 1775 there was no question of separation. During all the Revolution Adams declared that he would have given everything to restore things as before with security; and both Jefferson and Madison admitted in the presence of the English minister that a few seats in both Houses would have set at rest the whole question.
In their appeal to the higher law the Americans professed the purest Whiggism, and they claimed that their resistance to the House of Commons and the jurisprudence of Westminster only carried forward the eternal conflict between Whig and Tory. By their closer analysis, and their fearlessness of logical consequences, they transformed the doctrine and modified the party. The uprooted Whig, detached from his parchments and precedents, his leading families and historic conditions, exhibited new qualities; and the era of compromise made way for an era of principle. Whilst French diplomacy traced the long hand of the English opposition in the tea riots at Boston, Chatham and Camden were feeling the influence of Dickinson and Otis, without recognising the difference. It appears in a passage of one of Chatham's speeches, in 1775: "This universal opposition to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen. It was obvious from the nature of things, and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the confirmed habits of thinking, from the spirit of Whiggism flourishing in America. The spirit which now pervades America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money in this country, is the same spirit which roused all England to action at the Revolution, and which established at a remote era your liberties, on the basis of that grand fundamental maxim of the Constitution, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent. To maintain this principle is the common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the Atlantic, and on this. It is the alliance of God and Nature, immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven. Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission will be found equally impotent to convince or enslave your fellow-subjects in America."
(John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "Lectures on the French Revolution")
But from the point of view of a citizen of a country the predecessors of which remained loyal throughout those years in the late 1770s and early 1780s, which saw fighting on its soil then and in the mid-1810s, which was driven to unify and expand under threats of invasion and annexation in the mid-1860s, which saw tariffs imposed a few decades later in an attempt to crush its economy and force annexation, and which nonetheless by the mid-20th century had become the staunchest of allies of the United States of America, declaring war on its attacker on December 7, 1941 even before the United States did, accepting hundreds of diverted flights and tens of thousands of diverted air passengers on another dark day for the United States sixty years later in Opération ruban jaune, and fighting alongside Americans in the Aleutians, in Normandy, in Korea, in Kuwait, in Afghanistan, and even its soldiers on military exchange in American units went to Iraq, and which has now seen that very same country elect in a free democratic exercise as its leader a man who has reverted to the policies of America's early days and repeatedly threatened invasion and annexation, disrespected our sovereignty and denied our form of government, and went so far as to escalate from categorically ruling out the use of military force to saying it was very unlikely after meeting with our Prime Minister...
"We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons."
"As the anthem reminds us, the True North is indeed strong and free."
On this day, the United States celebrates its freedom from what its founders saw as unjust tyranny, while at the same time threatening to impose that same unjust tyranny on others.
Je me souviens.
From a YouTube video by a Canadian conservative, posted March 9, addressing the tariffs levied against Canada and the threats of invasion and annexation made by the United States:
"You have literally become worse than the villain of your own creation story. At least with England, they actually had a credible argument, a credible claim, as you were their colony. They did subsidise your development, and so forth. They actually had an argument. You guys have none right now. And, to be clear, had I been around at the time, in 1776, I would have been a rebel, I would have been a revolutionary, I would not have been a loyalist. But America, you are now, quite literally, worse than 1775 England. You have lived long enough to see yourselves become the villain of your own story, by your own standards."
You celebrate your independence in the shadow of threatening worse to others, on flimsier grounds.
Je me souviens.
Thank you so much, Mike!
Hope you get to relax however you like to!🇺🇸
Thank you for reminding us that July 4th wasn’t the wedding—it was the proposal. The honeymoon never happened, and the in-laws (looking at you, capitalism and white supremacy) have been trying to annul the engagement ever since.
Declaring independence is easy. Living like we mean it? That’s where the callouses and jail records come in.
Freedom isn’t a product we inherited. It’s a project we unfinished. And the moment we forget that, some hedge fund manager in a flag pin will sell us a cheaper version of it—one that comes with subscriptions, surveillance, and a shrink-wrapped illusion of choice.
So yes. The fight continues. Not for nostalgia. Not for perfection. But for the audacious possibility that we could choose again. And this time, maybe choose each other.
Well said. Thank you!!🇺🇸🌽🍔